Sensors and sensor networks are pervasive—from homes to battlefields, and everywhere in-between. They are facilitating information processing anytime, anywhere for anyone. Likewise, textiles are pervasive and span the continuum of life from infants to senior citizens; from fashion to functionality; and from daily clothing to geotextiles. Today's individual is extremely active—or dynamic—and is demanding. The explosion of technology—electronics, computing and communications in the form of sensors and sensor networks—has fueled this demanding nature of the individual seeking connectivity and interactivity with surrounding objects and the environment. Also, textiles provide the ultimate flexibility in system design by virtue of the broad range of fibers, yarns, fabrics, and manufacturing techniques that can be deployed to create products for desired end-use applications.
The “technology enablers”—sensors and sensor networks—must be effectively incorporated into traditional textiles to add the third dimension of intelligence to textiles resulting in the next generation of “Interactive Textiles” or “i-Textiles,” and pave the way for the paradigm of “fabric is the computer”—the ultimate integration of textiles and information processing or computing.
To-date, no such automated and/or scalable method or technology for information routing has been shown in the art. Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.